Accepting Invitations
by TheSingingBlob
Summary: Draco, in the presence of happiness, can do little but wish he were a bachelor again. Implied D/H, implied Rose/Scorpius. Written for Grim Lupine.


A/N: Written as a gift for my friend Grim Lupine, who is all grown-up and going to orientation for college but still has time to attend Harry Potter movie premieres with me. At midnight. In handmade Malfoy and Weasley t-shirts. This, of course, because we are cool.

This contains implied Draco/Harry slash, for Grim Lupine, and implied Rose/Scorpius, for my own personal benefit. The prompt was summer, which is referred to in naught but the first sentence. Whoops.

Almost forgot! Disclaimer: I do not own the wonderful world of Harry Potter, that, I must sorrowfully add, belongs to J.K. Rowling and all her admirable genius.

* * *

It is another summer, another year to prepare for school, and Draco and his wife have taken their son to buy his schoolbooks. He cannot believe they're still learning from _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2_ but purchases a brand new leather-bound copy nonetheless.

A rather large family stands near the register. Four adults, five children. Draco knows who it is immediately: the Potter and Weasley posse. Potter is instantly recognizable- not only does his face appear regularly on unauthorized biographies and tabloid covers, but the untidy flop of black hair and the large round glasses are the same as they always were. He does look less worried, though, than he always used to. Ginny is the same as always- pretty, grinning. And the Mudb- Hermione (he always has to remember to correct himself; that word was passe anymore) has the same haughty expression and obnoxious pile of hair. Weasley is also the same, and has passed the red hair gene (as has his sister) to a number of the scampering children.

It suddenly occurs to Draco that the last time he was in this bookshop with them- the family- he was in his own second year. He had snidely (and perhaps jealously?) teased that Harry Potter had gotten himself a girlfriend, and now Harry Potter has gotten himself a wife and three young, attractive children.

Something Weasley says has them all in stitches, the parents, with the exception of the Mu- Hermione, who is looking scandalized (but isn't really.) Draco feels a twist of pain: they are happy. He is not.

He sees them laughing together and realizes to what he has resigned himself.

He has trapped himself inside his own steadily constructed life.

The choices he has made have never been his own choices. His own personality, even, seemed learned from his father. He's partly sure his harsh sense of humor, quickness to judge, and unflappable pride are genetic, and to this day there is nothing he can do about them.

For a time after the war, he stayed in- his mother had convinced him it was probably best, and his father never left the house. The Malfoys remained a high-profile family, and once the fervor had calmed his mother suggested that he should return to the public eye. Draco spent his nights in London, his tall frame, handsome face, and notoriety attracting admirers and invitations from all sorts. Witches, Muggle women...even a few men, here and there. There were a few times- only a few- where he took up these invitations, and he always returned to Malfoy Manor and suspicious parents.

Eventually, as society and his mother dictated, it was time for him to start his own family. It would not do, as his own father had told him, to perpetually be a bachelor. People talked. People made assumptions. Assumptions, he had told Draco, that you don't want people to make. Draco had the faint impression that his parents had already talked and made these assumptions themselves, and decided that a marriage, for Draco, would be the best way to content their collective conscience.

He'd met Astoria at a party held by friends of his parents. She'd been leaning against a table, laughing with someone, a glass of champagne loosely held between her slender fingers. She was beautiful, with a long sheet of silvery blonde hair and a slight figure, and wore a dark red dress that clung conveniently to the few curves she did have. Draco had introduced himself; charmed his way into the conversation she'd been in the middle of. She gave great small-talk, but Draco got the distinct feeling she wasn't particularly bright. She was funny, though, and had drunk a substantial amount of alcohol. Her countenance was rather endearing, and Draco had to return for second and third and tenth visits, previous pursuits swiftly forgotten.

Until they'd married, of course, and she was always harping on him to buy her things, or to let her go out, or to have a baby. To quit her incessant nagging Draco had satisfied all of her wants, and it made her quite haughty and spoiled. He found himself looking back fondly at his bachelor days, wishing he could just go about accepting invitations again. He was still handsome; people would still ask. Though the arrival of his son brightened him considerably, he still harbored a wretched sort of emptiness. It made him bitter, and tired, and disagreeable. There was so much more that he wanted.

And that's why he feels so jealous, standing here, watching Potter and Weasley and their own children, laughing. It is just luck that decides which family one will be born into, and they had no more right than he to be happy.

Astoria is waiting behind him, a ring-laden hand poised on his shoulder. "Draco, what are you looking at?" she asks, and he realizes that he cannot give her a truthful answer; cannot say he has been watching Harry Potter for what has to have been ten minutes. "Oh," he mutters, "nothing, nothing at all." He takes a bundle of books from his son, who is eying a blushing, curly-haired Weasley daughter, and takes them to the shopkeeper to pay for them.

Glancing between his son and the pink-cheeked Weasley girl, Draco sees he is not the only one to have witnessed this adolescent exchange. Potter is barely concealing a smirk, watching the children from his spot in the corner of the store. In a rare moment of good humor, Draco nudges his son and comments audibly, "Look, Scor, you've got yourself a girlfriend!"

Harry Potter busts into another round of laughter, obviously remembering their own similar exchange. Draco feels uncomfortably pleased.

Astoria complains from somewhere behind- she wants an ice cream, and to have a look round in Gladrags one more time.

Harry smirks again.

Draco sighs, and obliges, and fondly remembers his bachelor days.


End file.
